Meredith O'Brien: My hero wears glasses and has wizardly charm

Wednesday

Jul 29, 2009 at 12:01 AMJul 29, 2009 at 6:03 AM

In preparation for the release of the new movie "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" this summer, the twins and I simultaneously re-read the sixth book in the series. (I claimed the house copy while they borrowed copies from the library.)

Meredith O'Brien

They’ve read the entire Harry Potter series anywhere from seven to 10 times, depending on which one of my 10-year-old twins you ask.
They’ve been obsessed with the wizard saga -- the first installment of which was published the year before they were born -- ever since the spring of 2007 when they dipped their toes into a world of magic, heartbreak and bravery for the first time.
Hooked, they devoured the J.K. Rowling books and then moved on to the films, despite the fact that the movies, as with the books, grow bleaker and more frightening as Potter gets older and his woes get more complex. In preparation for the release of the new movie "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" this summer, the twins and I simultaneously re-read the sixth book in the series. (I claimed the house copy while they borrowed copies from the library.)
I hadn’t always been a party to my kids’ Potter obsession. In fact, for a while, I didn’t quite get it. Not when the two would hole themselves up in their rooms and stay up until the wee hours reading. Not when they dressed up as Potter, Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley on various Halloweens. Not when I organized Potter-themed birthday parties, put up twinkle lights and labored over a homemade Sorting Hat I fashioned from paper grocery bags.
However, last summer, I acquiesced to my twins’ pleadings to dive into the Rowling series with them. Surprised to find myself so captivated so fast, I plowed through all seven books, which, all told, amounted to more than 4,100 pages. Then I finally understood what all the fuss was about: Harry Potter is to this generation of kids what Luke Skywalker was to mine.
When "Star Wars" came out in 1977, my younger brother and I were smitten, especially with the lead character, the teenage Luke Skywalker, who was raised by an aunt and uncle who died in the first movie, just as Skywalker learned he possessed the innate abilities of a powerful kind of galactic wizard, called a Jedi knight, in "Star Wars" parlance.
As two more "Star Wars" films were released -- "The Empire Strikes Back" and "The Return of the Jedi" -- our enthusiasm for the franchise grew. Our house became populated by "Star Wars" books, trading cards, stuffed animals and my brother’s army of action figures and ships, including a large At-At Walker he got for Christmas one year.
We’d transform the living room into a complex of blankets and pillows that took the form of imaginary secret bases that populated that galaxy far, far away. We acted out with the action figures the good guys versus the bad. Sure, Darth Vader did wind up being hero Luke Skywalker’s father-turned-vicious-killer-bad-guy; however, by the third film, Lord Vader realized that he still had a heart and an emotional connection to his son, who had the ability to knock off the most powerful evil-doer in the "Star Wars" universe.
With Harry Potter, the dynamic is similar, albeit much darker and more tragic because the series started when the hero was 11 years old.
I asked my twins recently why they liked Potter -- known as “The Boy Who Lived,” the sole survivor of a fatal Voldemort curse -- and they described his caring nature, courage, sense of humor and, above all, his devotion to his friends, and his white-haired mentor at the Hogwarts School, Professor Dumbledore, who reminds me of Skywalker’s mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi.
“He’s not one of those snobby, stuck-up kids even though he’s famous,” my daughter said. “[His fame] doesn’t change how he acts.”
“He fights. He wins,” my son said. “He’s a boy and Voldemort is a grown man who has all this power. And it’s cool to think of how Harry and all of his friends survive and stop him.”
After the thousands of pages of text, hours of movies, the Hogwarts school banners decorating my kids’ walls, the wizard cloaks and Potter glasses they’ve donned and Potter chess set with which they’ve tested wits, there’s one theme that runs through all of this Harry hubbub that’s sunk in for my kids: Potter’s ability to love, despite all of the horrible things that have happened to him.
Throw in his penchant for surrounding himself with an eclectic group of friends -- from geeks, brainiacs and the socially awkward, to the odd ducks and the talented participants of the wizard sport called Quidditch who follow and befriend him because he’s not one to seek aggrandizement, and you’ve certainly got a solid role model, certainly better than Hannah Montana or SpongeBob.
And unlike Luke Skywalker, who had the tendency to whine and be gratingly self-absorbed, Potter suffers and doesn’t whine, which sets my kids’ favorite childhood character several notches above the one I admired as a kid. (Anakin Skywalker in the later "Star Wars" films: An insufferable whiner.)
Despite the tidy sum of money the Harry Potter Industrial Complex has pried from my hands in order to nourish my kids’ Potter fix, I’m delighted that my children decided to invite me to join them in the world of Potter, the boy who stars in the tales which tell my kids not only how to be brave, but how important it is to cherish the ones you love.
Columnist Meredith O’Brien blogs about parenting at the Picket Fence Post (wickedlocalparents.com/picketfencepost) and about pop culture at Suburban Mom (suburbanmomnotes.blogspot.com). Follow her on Twitter: MeredithOBrien.

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